[MrFixr55]

Hi Pholks,

I fixed a Model 20 for a friend (Phriend?  Am I carrying the Ph thing too far?)  and received in payment a complete Model 20 Deluxe, with a good grille and the pie plate speaker with the spider that looks like a 45 record adaptor, so it sounds nice.  Chassis needs resto, but I already have a good one on a bad cabinet.  Problem is that someone painted the whole cabinet a rather yucky dirty blonde.  Right over everything on the front, including the grille cloth the columns and the burl finish on the arch section, and on the sides and bottom moulding.  I don't know if this is latex, some type of "antiquing" kit or, Heaven help us, spray paint

3 questions to start:

1.  What is the best way to strip this?  chemical?  sanding?  a combination?  I can try the sides first as the side panel is cracked at the apex.  
     (My original cabinet is much worse.)
2.  Is the fancy burl finish on the arch of the front panel natural or some kind of photofinish?
3.  What are the best products for the face and sides?  The "columns", the burl finish on the arch of the front panel?

Dunno when I am going to get around to this, but I have wanted a nice looking 20 Deluxe for a while.

[radiorich]

Hello mr fixr,
I don'y think my deluxe is photofinish .
Sincerely Richard

[morzh]

No, it did not use photo-finish.
It is veneer with the shading on the front of changing darkness.

[Radioroslyn]

I usually don't do any sanding till all the stripping is done. The veneer on the cabinet is thin and it is easy to sand thru it chemical is the way to go. After the stripping light sanding using a block on flat surfaces and just hand on the others is good to level the grain as the process tends to raise it. I don't use lower than 320G for this, 400G is good too but a little more work.

Citrustrip is a good start. It's easy to work with and you won't need a fireman's scott pack to get near your work. Some use steel wool I like scotch brite pads. Auto paint stores or ebay sell them the red and the grey ones are what you would get (a bit on the rougher side). And odorless mineral spirits (oms). You want the stuff in the metal can not in the plastic jug. The jug stuff is low voc and is worthless. This is used to cleanup the cabinet and get all the stripper off.

[morzh]

Yeah, always wondered why they call them spirits "odorless".
It sure enough smell like a gas station.

[Radioroslyn]

It's on a scale of how bad is it compared to... Naphtha, chlorine bleach, mek, and lacquer thinner it's odorless.

[RodB]

I recently bought a can of oms and it now says Lo-odor mineral spirits.

When I use citrus stripper I leave it on for at least an hour, keeping it wet. You'll find it gives much better results than the recommended 20 minutes.

[jrblasde]

When I stripped my 46-480, I used a tin of Klean Strip Premium Stripper (it comes in a blue aluminum tin shaped like a tin of lighter fluid), combined with grade 0 steel wool. I found that it was very gentle on the veneer while simultaneously being very effective at removing the finish. I wiped it all down with “odorless” mineral spirits afterward.

[radiorich]

Hello Mr fixr,
You should have seen my Philco 610b which was painted with latex paint .
Here is a link to our Photo gallery that is my radio after restoring it.

Sincerely Richard

https://philcoradio.com/gallery2/1936a/#Model_610B

[MrFixr55]

Thx for the great info guys!!
Yes, keeping it wet works great; I I did that when I completely stripped my '64 Linc many years ago. Long drawn out process but was successful, the stripper I used back then even took off the Bondo and got me all the way to the bare metal from a body shop paint job over the Lincoln finish which consisted of Zn Chromate primer and red primer then the factory finish. Unfortunately after many years in primer, i will likely have to strip that off when I get around to finishing the bodywork on it, or sending it out. I don't remember what I used, but prolly too much to use on a radio.